Monday, March 1, 2010

I should be embarrased to admit this...


(continuing my "40 bags in 40 days" Lenten purge)


Another weekend, another round of purging from closets. This time I hit the girls clothes with a vengeance. Imagine 6 girls with clothes in 2 different closets and an armoire. What they grow out of or grow tired of through the school year gets folded (ie. tossed) onto the top shelves of their closet for me to go through later. In addition to their current seasons clothing in their closets there's a couple storage bins of in-between sizes in the attic, a bin of jeans under my bed, another bag of newly shared hand-me-downs from a friend in the corner of my bedroom...and on and on. In no time at all, the excess starts to take over every corner of our house.
I should be embarrased to admit this, but I will anyways...after corraling ALL girls clothing from every corner and nook of this home, I managed to save 4 tubs of out of season and between size clothing, throw away 2 garbage bags of holey/faded/too warn to pass on clothing, and donate 12 paper grocery sacks of good, gently used clothing. Talk about excess!! What's even more embarassing is that I could probably count on my 2 hands the number of items I actually purchased for our kids. The majority of it is hand-me-downs from friends, cousins, coworkers, etc. Those bags speak volumes of the kindness and charity of others, and is exactly why I couldn't stand to think of putting any of it on a garage sale...paying it forward, and donating what I couldn't pass along to friends, to our local Agape thrift store.
It reminds me of this post I shared awhile back...worth visiting again, I think.




Ahhh...I love to see empty hangers, and "breathing room" in closets. My sister-in-law reminded me not long ago that "Less is definitely more" when it comes to "stuff." She says she got the notion from me, but the way our closets looked recently, I needed to be reminded again.